(12-16-2021 12:06 PM)WestGrayStreetOwl Wrote:  

(12-15-2021 11:10 PM)wrysal Wrote:  

(12-15-2021 08:15 PM)WRCisforgotten79 Wrote:  Interesting thing about Tommy Kramer: in his first 3 seasons (under Al Conover), he completed just 44% of his passes
In 1976, under Homer Rice, he jumped to 53.7% completions, 300 yards per game, a 115.6 passer rating, and AP First Team All-American
Coaching matters.

Tommy Kramer's '76 season starts and ends the list of achievements of Homer Rice at Rice.

He hired Mike Schuler.

Perhaps more importantly, fired Bob Polk to hire Schuler.

(12-17-2021 11:34 PM)Owlman49 Wrote:  

(12-15-2021 03:08 PM)ruowls Wrote:  

(12-15-2021 02:39 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  The Texas HS coaches are not there to design schemes or make in-game coaching decisions. They are there to recruit, recruit, recruit. And THSCA takes care of its own. Jerry Berndt couldn’t make any headway recruiting with a bunch of out-of-staters. Fred Goldsmith had a bunch of Texans and turned recruiting up several notches

Was it out-of-staters or Berndt himself in addition to a bunch of out-of-staters. In this case, had Berndt hired more TX HS coaches, would it have even mattered. As I stated, I get that trying to recruit better TX HS athletes from the TX HS ranks by utilizing TX HS coaching connections is a good thing. But my point is that if the evaluation process is to just recruit the best TX HS athletes, so is UNT, UTEP, UTSA, SMU SHSU, and all the TX P5s as well as the P5 of all the surrounding states. So to fully utilize the TX HS coaches, they need to augment the ability of the decision makers on getting the TX HS players that can win by means other than shear athleticism.

Yes and Yes.... having served as GA during Berndt's last year and the transition to Fred Goldsmith, I have a unique insight to this topic.
I will relate one story that got back to us about Jerry's assistant's efforts in recruiting Texas. One of the coaches was visiting a high school in West Texas and his next stop was in Big Spring.... sadly this coach who was from the East Coach Tennis Shoe League contingent that Berndt brought with him, asked as he was leaving this high school, and I quote, "Hey, can you tell me the easiest way to get to "LARGE SPRING"!!!" Keep in mind this is pre GPS in the 80's, but suffice it to say this story spread throughout Texas HS coaching ranks about the east coast contingent at Rice.
All that to say, whatever coaches we have, I advocate the coaches assigned to recruit Texas at least have some connection to Texas.

And virtually every coach at Rice must be assigned to do some recruiting in Texas. Maybe your coordinators don't recruit that much, although your special teams coordinator needs to be a helluva kicking recruiter if you plan to win games with special teams. But maybe you get some coordinators with connections to out-of-state places you want to recruit (Florida, California), and concentrate your position coaches on recruiting Texas (maybe one Louisiana, one Arkansas, and one Oklahoma).

Maybe the most important guy in the whole setup is the David Wetzel position at Baylor, Director of HS Relations. He can't actually do any on-field coaching or face-to-face recruiting, but he lives on the phone with HS coaches, getting information and videos, and setting up visits and appointments. He needs to be on a first-name basis with every HS coach in Texas and have every one of their numbers stored in his cell phone. Wetzel had the perfect resume--at the time he was hired, he was president of the THSFCA. Hiring him and Joey McGuire were genius moves by Matt Rule. I've said before, I'd like to hire the presidents of the Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma HS coaches' associations.

it is not just in football that Rice is neglecting its surroundings in Texas. I think it is admitting fewer Texas high school grads than it did 50 years ago. i was one of 8 Houston Westbury grads who came to Rice in 1971. I agree with 69 that we need to get most of our football recruits from Texas and have that connection. Texas coaches are important in bringing in those recruits. The Texas HS coaches also know their X and O s. Many of the best college coaches such as Bellard started by coaching in Texas high schools.

(12-18-2021 12:07 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-17-2021 11:34 PM)Owlman49 Wrote:  

(12-15-2021 03:08 PM)ruowls Wrote:  

(12-15-2021 02:39 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  The Texas HS coaches are not there to design schemes or make in-game coaching decisions. They are there to recruit, recruit, recruit. And THSCA takes care of its own. Jerry Berndt couldn’t make any headway recruiting with a bunch of out-of-staters. Fred Goldsmith had a bunch of Texans and turned recruiting up several notches

Was it out-of-staters or Berndt himself in addition to a bunch of out-of-staters. In this case, had Berndt hired more TX HS coaches, would it have even mattered. As I stated, I get that trying to recruit better TX HS athletes from the TX HS ranks by utilizing TX HS coaching connections is a good thing. But my point is that if the evaluation process is to just recruit the best TX HS athletes, so is UNT, UTEP, UTSA, SMU SHSU, and all the TX P5s as well as the P5 of all the surrounding states. So to fully utilize the TX HS coaches, they need to augment the ability of the decision makers on getting the TX HS players that can win by means other than shear athleticism.

Yes and Yes.... having served as GA during Berndt's last year and the transition to Fred Goldsmith, I have a unique insight to this topic.
I will relate one story that got back to us about Jerry's assistant's efforts in recruiting Texas. One of the coaches was visiting a high school in West Texas and his next stop was in Big Spring.... sadly this coach who was from the East Coach Tennis Shoe League contingent that Berndt brought with him, asked as he was leaving this high school, and I quote, "Hey, can you tell me the easiest way to get to "LARGE SPRING"!!!" Keep in mind this is pre GPS in the 80's, but suffice it to say this story spread throughout Texas HS coaching ranks about the east coast contingent at Rice.
All that to say, whatever coaches we have, I advocate the coaches assigned to recruit Texas at least have some connection to Texas.

And virtually every coach at Rice must be assigned to do some recruiting in Texas. Maybe your coordinators don't recruit that much, although your special teams coordinator needs to be a helluva kicking recruiter if you plan to win games with special teams. But maybe you get some coordinators with connections to out-of-state places you want to recruit (Florida, California), and concentrate your position coaches on recruiting Texas (maybe one Louisiana, one Arkansas, and one Oklahoma).

Maybe the most important guy in the whole setup is the David Wetzel position at Baylor, Director of HS Relations. He can't actually do any on-field coaching or face-to-face recruiting, but he lives on the phone with HS coaches, getting information and videos, and setting up visits and appointments. He needs to be on a first-name basis with every HS coach in Texas and have every one of their numbers stored in his cell phone. Wetzel had the perfect resume--at the time he was hired, he was president of the THSFCA. Hiring him and Joey McGuire were genius moves by Matt Rule. I've said before, I'd like to hire the presidents of the Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma HS coaches' associations.

I don't think Rice has that position. That was one thing Bailiff wanted and did not have money for. It was basically being done back then by some retired HS coaches working on a volunteer basis.

(12-15-2021 07:45 PM)WRCisforgotten79 Wrote:  

(12-15-2021 05:42 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  As for the big strong-armed QB who can convert third-and-8 consistently, I don't know that Rice has had one of those since Tommy Kramer, and that is approaching 50 years ago. And his teams won 5, 2, 2, and 3 games (12-31-1) because after his first year they didn't play much defense.

Donald Hollas, for sure, and to a lesser degree, Randy Hertel and Mark Comalander.

I'll give you Hollas, but not Hertel or Comalander. They were more the kind of top end of what we can typically get, as were Josh LaRocca and Chase Clement and Taylor McHargue, and they were more effective when we used their feet as well as their arm. We got Hollas because of family, and he at least made it to the NFL as a drop-back passer.

(12-05-2021 10:44 AM)Hambone10 Wrote:  It would be great if you could build a great defense. The problem is, everyone else is building great offenses and the p5 take most of the great defensive players.

I still like to combine Fred's and Ken's philosophies, "Play sound defense, win the kicking game, and do something different on offense."

We're not going to build Georgia's defense, or Alabama's. But if we made it a point of emphasis, we could have the best defense in CUSA. And in a league where nobody else really plays much defense, that could be a pretty good contrarian differentiator.

We could also have the best kicking game in CUSA by being willing to offer a scholarship to a punter or place kicker every year, alternating them so we always had two of each on campus for competition. That's one place we can out-recruit even the P5s, because they try to use walk-ons and if we could offer a scholarship we would have an advantage.

Then do something different and contrarian on offense. It could be Dinger's one-back, or Hat's flexbone, or Ruowls's West Coast passing game, or the run-and-shoot, or the air raid, or some combination of elements from several of them. I like the Erk Russell/Bob Wagner/Paul Johnson combination of the flexbone running attack with an effective passing attack. Russell and Wagner were both defensive guys who let Johnson experiment with combining the option with a passing attack.

Offense sells tickets, defense wins games, and special teams win championships. Right now, selling tickets might be as important to Rice as winning games or championships.

(12-18-2021 03:15 PM)75src Wrote:  it is not just in football that Rice is neglecting its surroundings in Texas. I think it is admitting fewer Texas high school grads than it did 50 years ago. i was one of 8 Houston Westbury grads who came to Rice in 1971. I agree with 69 that we need to get most of our football recruits from Texas and have that connection. Texas coaches are important in bringing in those recruits. The Texas HS coaches also know their X and O s. Many of the best college coaches such as Bellard started by coaching in Texas high schools.

My son went to Carnegie Vanguard in HISD (top 20 in the country or so), would have been 4th generation and more than just that. Better SAT score than me. And got waitlisted. Just pathetic.

(12-19-2021 12:59 PM)texowl2 Wrote:  

(12-18-2021 03:15 PM)75src Wrote:  it is not just in football that Rice is neglecting its surroundings in Texas. I think it is admitting fewer Texas high school grads than it did 50 years ago. i was one of 8 Houston Westbury grads who came to Rice in 1971. I agree with 69 that we need to get most of our football recruits from Texas and have that connection. Texas coaches are important in bringing in those recruits. The Texas HS coaches also know their X and O s. Many of the best college coaches such as Bellard started by coaching in Texas high schools.

My son went to Carnegie Vanguard in HISD (top 20 in the country or so), would have been 4th generation and more than just that. Better SAT score than me. And got waitlisted. Just pathetic.

Here's what I don't understand. The BOT seems to have as its top priority maintaining (and/or growing) the endowment. One way the Ivies grow their endowments is by admitting legacies. If I graduated from Yale and make billions on Wall Street, then I am happy to give millions to Yale because I know my sons (and daughters) and their children will be able to go to Yale and take advantage of the library or recreation building or whatever that I gave to Yale. If I graduated from Rice and make billions, but my sons go to TT and SMU, and my daughters go to Baylor and TCU, then I'm going to give money to TT, SMU, Baylor, and TCU, because that way my kids (and probably my grandkids) will benefit.

On a related note, if I graduated from Rice but went to law school or medical school at TexasU or Baylor (because Rice does not have law or medical schools), there are studies which show that I tend to be inclined to give more money to TexasU or Baylor than to Rice. There are, of course, studies that can show whatever you want them to show, so I'm not sure how conclusive that is, but it is worth considering.

I don't know who got in ahead of your waitlisted son, but I'm willing to bet a crispy $20 that there were plenty of less qualified people who did get in. I sometimes think that admissions, like a lot of bureaucrats elsewhere, just love to reject legacies as a show of power, because they can, and because nobody can do anything to them about it.

The stories about legacy athletes that Nightowl and others have told border on insanity. There is no reason on God's green earth why Bert Emanuel Jr. should not go to Rice. Same with Nightowl's double legacy kids.

(12-19-2021 01:41 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-19-2021 12:59 PM)texowl2 Wrote:  

(12-18-2021 03:15 PM)75src Wrote:  it is not just in football that Rice is neglecting its surroundings in Texas. I think it is admitting fewer Texas high school grads than it did 50 years ago. i was one of 8 Houston Westbury grads who came to Rice in 1971. I agree with 69 that we need to get most of our football recruits from Texas and have that connection. Texas coaches are important in bringing in those recruits. The Texas HS coaches also know their X and O s. Many of the best college coaches such as Bellard started by coaching in Texas high schools.

My son went to Carnegie Vanguard in HISD (top 20 in the country or so), would have been 4th generation and more than just that. Better SAT score than me. And got waitlisted. Just pathetic.

I don't know who got in ahead of your waitlisted son, but I'm willing to bet a crispy $20 that there were plenty of less qualified people who did get in. I sometimes think that admissions, like a lot of bureaucrats elsewhere, just love to reject legacies as a show of power, because they can, and because nobody can do anything to them about it.

I'm not sure, but the mailing address was somewhere in Beijing.

If i ever become dictator of the world, one of the first things I would do is fire every single person in applications of every university (that department should not be called admissions as they really don't care about admissions, they do care about applications so their rate will be silly low). The expense for travel and all that is totally bogus, meeting "qualified" students, not to mention I suspect few could actually get a job in the real world. Second thing would be to make every university show where all that money is being spent. Nothing in our world NOTHING, not even health care and entertainment has increased in cost more than upper education. And I mean a lot of specifics, I suspect parents would go bonkers if they knew.

(12-19-2021 05:05 PM)texowl2 Wrote:  If i ever become dictator of the world, one of the first things I would do is fire every single person in applications of every university (that department should not be called admissions as they really don't care about admissions, they do care about applications so their rate will be silly low). The expense for travel and all that is totally bogus, meeting "qualified" students, not to mention I suspect few could actually get a job in the real world. Second thing would be to make every university show where all that money is being spent. Nothing in our world NOTHING, not even health care and entertainment has increased in cost more than upper education. And I mean a lot of specifics, I suspect parents would go bonkers if they knew.

Absolutely correct